Urban Planning for Low-Income Secondary Cities

Patrick Lamson-Hall is an Economist and Policy Analyst with the Sahel and West Africa Club at the OECD and Founder of Fitted Projects, a boutique urban design and architecture firm. He discusses his work helping cities prepare for urban expansion and the role both private and public actors should play. Small investments in planning can help cities accommodate new migrants and manage their expansion in an economically viable, socially inclusive, and sustainable way.

On March 11th, the Charter Cities Institute (CCI) and the Marron Institute of Urban Management co-hosted the NYU New Cities Conference in New York City. The event brought together economists, political scientists, architects, and urbanists to discuss the challenges of and solutions to Africa’s rapid urbanization. Africa will see over a billion new residents move into its cities by 2050–the equivalent of 100 megacities –and without innovative solutions, its cities will struggle to translate population growth into economic prosperity.Concerned with growing pressures on already overburdened infrastructure and public services, many policymakers are turning to an ambitious idea: rapid urban expansion and the construction of new master planned cities from scratch. The conference aimed to discuss how new cities, charter cities, and urban expansion will impact Africa’s urban future.